


Of Rats and Sailors

by Partycat



Category: Tintin - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 09:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Partycat/pseuds/Partycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[ABANDONED, didn't want to completely delete it/orphan it so heads up, old work that I don't think is any good]</p><p> </p><p>If you where ever going to prompt a fic on the kinkmeme with the prompt:<br/> </p><p>  <i>The crew of the Karaboujdan are fucking idiots but also a little bit cute</i></p><p> </p><p>This would be the result; featuring more rats then you can shake a stick at.<br/>(Note: The Allan/Tom is very very light, seriously, it doesn't effect the plot at all)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Rats and Sailors

“D’ya think Geitch’s dog-rat escaped?”

“Nah, he knows to keep an eye on that beast, besides it didn’t sound like a rat, it sounded bigger…”

“What, bigger than the dog-rat!? That’s 4 foot long at least; what the hell does this monster look like then?”

The men suddenly fell quiet. The discussion had started when Pedro ran into the men’s cabin claiming he’d seen and heard a creature moving in the hold when he went to check on the stocks. If what Pedro said was true, they had one hell of a pest to deal with.

Tom stood up and began speaking “Alright, tell ya what, I’ll go get Allan and you lot grab some weapons, we’ll all go down and find this thing then yeah?”

The men rolled their eyes; of course Tom wanted to drag Allan into this. Yet, it was the only plan they had right now and smashing a potential monsters head in sounded better then cowering in fear over it.

*

Allan jerked awake at the loud knocking, he’d fallen asleep doing the paperwork again. Oops. He just hoped it wasn’t the Captain at the door.

“Allan?”

Thank God, it was only Tom.

“What?” he replied, checking in his cracked mirror for any ink smudges that might be on his face. Tom opened the door and poked his head in.

“You better come along, Pedro thinks ‘e found a monster in the hold” he said.

“You sure ‘e hasn’t been at the whiskey?” Allan wasn’t quite in the mood for stupid jokes

Tom frowned “Nah, I swear, he’s sober”

“Fine” Allan stood up and whipped his cap on “Let’s go get a light, but I swear if this turns out to be some kinda bloody joke…”

Tom just nodded, following behind the other man to the storage cupboard.

“Yeah, ‘e says it sounded bigger then that rat Geitch keeps and that’s at least fou-”

“Christ, don’t remind me of that thing” Allan interrupted.

He could still remember when he first saw the beast, lurking in the corner of boiler room, the crew had been complaining of a rotting smell down there and it was up to Allan to find the cause. The rat was the size of a small dog, with black eyes the size of coins, thick greasy dark grey fur and tail that could have been easily mistaken for a snake. The beast had somehow managed to kill a seagull (although there wasn’t much of it left when Allan found it, a small bloody mess and a broken wing was all that had remained), and dragged it down into ship. Allan had never particularly worried about the rats on the ship, but he made an exception in the case of Geitch’s over sized one.

He pulled the first light he could find from the tangled knot of wires in the store room and with his mind filled with images of filthy rats bigger the one in the boiler room, Allan took a crowbar and hammer as well. You could never be too careful.

*

“Right, Pedro” Allan turned to the smaller man “Where did you exactly see this… thing?”

Allan, Tom, Pedro, Ernie and Jumbo stood outside the hold door, all carrying an assortment of weapons and bracing themselves for a potential assault on what Jumbo had dubbed “The biggest bastard rat you could imagine”

“Aiy, behind the crates, senor, to the l-left!” he said, clutching the cricket bat in his hands tighter.

Allan nodded and huffed. Time to face whatever great beast lurked in the hold. He slowly opened the door, a long creak following its movement. The men held their breath, waiting for a gargantuan rat to leap out from the shadows and rip them to shreds.

Once Allan realised it’d been a minute and no, he hadn’t been slaughtered by an oversized ship rat, he mustered up some courage and slowly crept into the hold, keeping the light about arms length in front of him. It was rather dim and only seemed to cast more shadows as he approached the crates but it certainly beat trying to do this in the dark.

A shuffling noise emerged from the pile of crates, the sound moving towards him. Allan yelled and jumped backwards as he swore he felt something just run over his foot, causing all havoc to break loose; he collapsed on top of Tom and Jumbo, his light falling to the ground with a resounding crack, Ernie tried to turn around and run but instead tripped over a box filled with crab tins, sending them everywhere and Pedro (who was still lurking in the doorway, no way in hell was he going back in there) screeched, slamming the door to the hold in fear. The remaining men where left in total darkness with the creature.

“Bollocks” Allan mumbled. He heard Jumbo and Ernie groan, both of them must’ve received some nasty knocks. Tom just whimpered and grasped Allan’s arm.

“We’re not gonna die here are we Al?” he whispered, pulling himself closer to the other man.

Allan scoffed, suddenly feeling courageous “Of course not Tom, it’s only a fucking over grown rat, we can take it out dead easy” He shook off the other man and stood up, brushing himself down.

“Yeah, that’s all well and good boss but we can’t see a thing” Ernie called from across the room.

Allan growled in the direction he hoped where Ernie sat “Then why don’t you do something about it? Go open the door you clumsy bugger”

He heard Ernie stand up and stumble towards the door, a loud thud confirming that the man had indeed fallen over some of the cans he’d scattered. Suddenly, the room was filled with a dull glow as Ernie opened the door and punched Pedro in the gut

“Twat, what chu do that for!? We could’ve been eaten alive!”

“I was scared! Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing, eh?”

“Come on Ernie, cut Pedro some slack” Jumbo called

Ernie turned around “Why should I?! And of course I wouldn’t have slammed the door, I’m not a coward like you”

Allan opened his mouth to tell them all to keep quiet but was stopped by a loud pained gasp.

Tom had heard it too, standing up he shushed the other three and turned to the crates, squinting to try and get a better look.

A regular sized rat ran out from the crates, squeaking as it ran past the men into the corridor. Allan carefully approached the crates again, this time he could hear something coming from them; someone was crying very softly.

He pushed one of the crates to side, just enough that he could see through into the gap, the pale light illuminating something in the dark. He could see a arm covered with angry red marks, bites from the many rats around the ship, a small hand scratching them in a vain attempt to calm the itching.

“Trust me, you don’t wanna scratch them” A head snapped to look in Allan’s direction and he finally got sight of Pedro’s monster.

A small and very frightened little girl.

**Author's Note:**

> Critique is always very welcome and yeah if you liked it, uh, thanks?  
> There is more to come but this seemed like a good place to end off on for the first chapter.


End file.
